>> AUGMENTATIONS

[hanzer]

CRANIUM

» HACKING DEVICE

CAPTURE
Implanted in the cranium, the MHD-995 Hacking Device is a dedicated microcomputer module featuring a series of processors and databases, programmed with multiple code-breaking and counter-cryptography subroutines. When deployed, the hacking device provides immediate assistance to any user attempting to bypass, shut down or otherwise override electronic systems via a standard terminal interface. The unit is capable of identifying and providing I-War intrusion solutions for over fifteen million discrete software barriers.

At its most basic level, the Hacking Device gives its user the CPU clock cycles necessary to attempt a data penetration of target computer systems before triggering any intrusion counter-measures or alarms. At advanced levels of operation, the augmentation facilitates direct interface with other electronic security and tactical devices.

↳ CAPTURE 5 Mastering the MHD-995 Hacking Device gifts users with a mastery over all foreign electronic systems, thus enabling them to navigate and control pathways and nodes with the ease of a network administrator.
↳ CAMERA DOMINATION The MHD-995 Hacking Device has a powerful suite of enhanced functionalities that, in addition to the penetration of firewalls for clandestine data retrieval, can also enable an experienced hacker to co-opt and take control of deeper subsystems, such as those used by security cameras.
↳ TURRET DOMINATION Experienced MHD-995 users will be able to co-opt automatic weapon turrets and turn them against friendly forces or shut them down completely.
↳ ROBOT DOMINATION Users who decide to hone their co-option skills even further will eventually be able to seize control of robots and either turn them against friendly forces or shut them down entirely.

ANALYZE
Compatible with all top-line hacking augmentations, the Network Scout is a cranial implantation that provides instantaneous feedback on every aspect of an electronic intrusion. Upon access, highly specialized scripts issue forth to relay data back to the parent hacking augmentation, efficiently employing its inherent functionality to present crucial real-time status.

Use of the Network Scout Electronic Systems Analysis Augmentation in conjunction with a hacking augmentation device provides the user with important information during a hacking scenario, including the percentage likelihood of detection, content of APIs, and/or content of datastores.

↳ DETECTION FEEDBACK With a little bit of practice, the Network Scout user can evaluate the likelihood of detection for an attack on any node not currently in range.
↳ ANALYZE ALL DATASTORES The very advanced Network Scout user can determine the content of any datastore within the targeted system, regardless of the linking or degree of control.

FORTIFY
The software defenses provided by the Costikyan NeuralOptics Node Fortifier instantly turn any captured node into an intruder asset against the host system, rendering it both a barrier against detection, and a solid beachhead from which to launch further intrusion. The power of these defenses are variable, determined by the user's skill and preference.

↳ FORTIFY 3 Solid protection against intrusion countermeasures is available to anyone with the Costikyan NeuralOptics Node Fortifier, once they've developed a reasonable aptitude with the device.

STEALTH
A natural companion to the MHD-995 Tactical Informational Warfare Augmentation, the MHD-995SH Informational Warfare Obfuscation Augmentation slots neatly beside that device within the cranium. During an intrusion scenario, the Obfuscation Augmentation actively transmits misdirection and noise packets throughout the target system, alternately confusing and confounding active software defenses, decreasing the likelihood of detection by intrusion countermeasures.

Given enough time, even the most advanced electronic system can be penetrated. The MHD-995SH Informational Warfare Obfuscation Augmentation provides that mission-critical time with software as sophisticated as that found within any defense grid.

↳ STEALTH 3 A skilled user of the MHD-995SH Informational Warfare Obfuscation Augmentation will experience a 45% decrease across the board in terms of detection likelihoods for intrusive actions, down to a minimum of 15%.

» WAYFINDER RADAR SYSTEM
The Radar System augmentation is an enhancement of the Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis, providing a rudimentary 'radar' scope that displays the location of designated units, including enemy combatants, electronic devices, or other targets of interest. The augmentation consists of a cranial implant that contains the core processor, ranging and detection system and a connective link to the user's visual cortex.

In its basic mode, the Wayfinder Radar System gives the user a limited-range 'radar' indicator, which is projected directly onto the retina optical user interface. In its advanced mode, the augmentation's detection threshold can be increased, and the movement of targets can be tracked even beyond visual range.

↳ RADAR 2 With some practice, Wayfinder users can fine-tune the unit to double its range (to 50m) when keeping track of any threat.

» STEALTH ENHANCER
A cranial implant with a series of hair-thin dermal sensors (typically implanted along the crown of the skull), the stealth enhancer ties in to existing vision augmentations and provides a direct feedback to the level of ambient sound generated by the user. The implant's central processing unit can also perform instant situation-based analysis of targets identified via line-of-sight and is capable of predicting the vision cones of these targets with great accuracy, even after loss of direct observation.

In its most basic mode, the Stealth Monitor augmentation provides users with an ambient noise feedback indicator, projected directly onto their optical display. In its advanced mode, the augmentation can provide a rudimentary tracking scope, capable of showing the sight lines of observed enemy units.

↳ CONES OF VISION The enhanced 'Vision Feedback' functionality of the Stealth Monitor allows experienced users to define and track the sight cones of enemy targets (either organic or inorganic). These vision cones appear on the radar display.
↳ NOISE FEEDBACK The enhanced 'Noise Feedback' functionality of the Stealth Monitor gives its user a real-time representation of personally-generated noise levels and their detection range. This information appears as a pulsating circle radiating from its user's position on the radar.
↳ LAST KNOWN LOCATION MARKER This stealth upgrade gets activated upon detection by enemy forces and monitors the opponents' behavior and eye movements in order to determine whether they've lost sight of the user or not. Once an evasion is successful, the on-board software places a marker at the approximate location where enemies are expecting the user to be. This marker appears only in the user's field of view, via augmented reality, and helps them slip away unnoticed by showing him where the enemy thinks he is.
↳ MARK AND TRACK 3.0 The mark and track software is ultimately able to follow up to 7 targets at once.

» INFOLINK
The Infolink Telecommunications Package enables users to receive and transmit messages without generating audible sounds through implanted cochlear and vibration detection devices. Video signals accompanying incoming transmissions are projected directly onto the user's retina, provided an Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis is also implanted.

At its most basic level, the package uses tight-band microwave signals when sending and receiving. With experience, users can obtain mastery over wideband transmissions as well, enabling them to interface with line-of-sight computer terminals or similar devices.

↳ COCHLEAR IMPLANT The cochlear implant component of the Infolink Telecommunications Package sends incoming audio transmissions directly into the user's ear canal, eliminating the need for unsightly or uncomfortable headphones.
↳ SUBVOCAL COMMUNICATION IMPLANT A microprobe mastoid Subvocal Communication Implant also comes standard with the Infolink Package, allowing users to talk back to transmission senders using 'subvocal' tone ranges.

» SOCIAL ENHANCER
The Computer-Assisted Social Interaction Enhancer is a cranial implant that ties directly in to the user's existing Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis to relay environmental and personal data about targeted individuals, in order to assist social interaction. The C.A.S.I.E. implant uses an Optical Psychophysiological Responses Analyzer (aka 'Optical Polygraph') to gauge a rudimentary psychological profile based on facial expression, body language, and environmental cues.

Combined with the advanced Emotional Intelligence Enhancer software engine, the system can deliver real-time predictive data directly to the user, enabling them to correctly interpret responses and draw the desired result from face-to-face conversations.

The C.A.S.I.E. implant provides its user with a direct monitor of behavior patterns and likely responses from conversational subjects. In real terms, this means the user can gain an insight into which conversational methods to employ in any given situation, discover subtle clues and intentions, and view a virtual 'persuasion' gauge for their target.

↳ EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ENHANCER The Emotional Intelligence Enhancer combines several systems, including:

Optical Polygraph: Appears as a meter in the upper left corner of the user's vision. Indicates whether the user is swaying the target to his or her way of thinking by reading involuntary reactions like blush response, pupil dilation, and increased heart rate.
Personality Analyzer: Displays helpful insights about the personality the user is dealing with on the right side of his or her vision.
Synthetic Pheromones Propagator: Releases bio-engineered pheromones designed to influence behavior.

EYES

» RETINAL PROSTHESIS
An optical membrane implant and data-frame for vision augmentations, this device is a microthin base coating layered onto the inside of the human eye, with a synthetic neural tissue spike connected to the optic nerve; it is capable of projecting digital information directly onto the retina.

The Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis is the basic 'chassis' for all optical augmentations and must be implanted in both eyes before further, more specialized devices can be purchased. The HUD projected by the prosthesis provides data on the user's medical condition, available equipment, wireless access to personal data storage, and direct audio/visual telecommunications.

↳ RETINAL HUD The Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis comes with an Optoelectronic Retinal Heads-Up Display that allows digital information to be directly displayed over the user's vision.
↳ FLASH SUPPRESSANT Experienced users of the Eye-Know Prosthesis can take advantage of its inherent self-preservation abilities, such as the Flash Suppressant, which prevents temporary or permanent blindness from all harsh light, including the most aggressive man-made sources.
↳ COOLDOWN TIMER With practice, users of the Eye-Know Prosthesis will learn to analyze patterns in movements and behavior, allowing the user to predict with startling accuracy the amount of time human targets will spend searching for intruders before giving up.

» SMART VISION
This augmentation implants the human eye with a series of suspended organic-plastic lenses which, in turn, use embedded circuitry to build on the basic data-frame provided by the Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis. By interfacing directly with the synthetic neural tissue spike that is connected to the optic nerve, it provides the implanted prosthesis with the ability to match visual silhouettes and body kinetics to micro-thermograph and t-wave lens modules, thus providing a limited degree of “x-ray vision” through walls and light cover.

An optical membrane implant that enables people already equipped with the Eye-Know Retinal Prosthesis to visually scan through walls, doors, and cover objects and see what lies beyond.

↳ WALL-PENETRATING IMAGER The thermographic and t-wave features installed in the Eye-Know Vision Enhancement Package provide limited-range image penetration of low-density objects and cover obstacles immediately, enabling users to see what hides behind them.

ARMS

» CYBERNETIC ARM PROSTHESIS
The Class-7 Cybernetic Arm Prosthesis is an augmented artificial limb built on a framework of advanced polymers and lightweight metals. In place of an organic musculature, these augmentations utilize myomers -- bunches of electro-stimulated plastic cables that mimic the actions of muscle tissues, but to a greatly strengthened degree. In combination with tiny motors and shock-absorbing liquid polymer buffers, these cyber-limbs are capable of far exceeding human physical abilities.

The Cybernetic Arm Prosthesis replaces the user's organic limbs with enhanced-function mechanical substitutes. Initially, the augmentation allows the user to engage in impressive feats of close-quarter unarmed combat. As the user grows more comfortable with his or her new arm, the range of available skills widens to include punching through light walls, displacing heavy objects, carrying at an increased capacity, and compensating for weapon recoil.

↳ INSTANT TAKE-DOWN Fast-link neural servos inside the Cybernetic Arm improve agility and hand-to-hand combat prowess, allowing the user to engage individual targets in close quarters and incapacitate them instantaneously.
↳ PUNCH THROUGH WALL Mastering use of the Cybernetic Arm's shock buffers and strengthened bone frames allows people equipped with the prosthesis to break through light walls with a powerful punch.
↳ RECOIL COMPENSATION Learning how to utilize the Cybernetic Arm's reaction-management buffers in conjunction with its bioplastic shock absorption compressor will completely eliminate the recoil generated by any firearm, allowing for a stabilized aim even while firing in fully automatic mode.
↳ MOVE/THROW HEAVY OBJECTS Getting used to the Cybernetic Arm's augmented strength allows the user to pick up and throw objects he or she wouldn't normally be able to lift.
↳ CARRYING CAPACITY 3 Mastering the durable, military-specification, survivable myomer muscle units inside the Cybernetic Arm allows users to carry 110% more inventory loads than normal.

» AIM STABILIZER
A cranial implant mechanism, the Aim Stabilizer is a decentralized augmentation with elements embedded in the user's nerve-brain connections, inner ear structure, and optic nerves,. From second to second, the augmentation reads and processes inputs from the user's innate senses for balance and orientation and modifies them accordingly based on current circumstances; thus, the user's sense of balance and hand-to-eye muscle control is regulated and enhanced, providing a greater stability even at speed or while in extreme motion.

The direct practical effect of the Aim Stabilizer is to reduce the radius of the 'traveling reticule' displayed on the user's optic interface, designating the target zone generated by a given firearm. The motion-dampening, stability-inducing augmentation narrows the firing zone, allowing the user to aim at targets with greater efficiency while moving.

↳ AIMING MOTION CONTROL 2 Increased familiarity with signals coming from the Aim Stabilizer's implanted elements enables users to maintain up to 100% of their targeting accuracy while in motion.

TORSO

» SENTINEL RX HEALTH SYSTEM
The Sentinel RX Health System is a combination implant that uses electro-cardio action, adrenal stimuli, and protein therapy to fight infection and injury throughout a limited 'regenerative' capacity. While it is no replacement for proper medical care, it can keep a user alive in the most critical of circumstances.

A decentralized augmentation made up of several smaller units; the primary components are a series of hair-fine sensor probes connected to all the vital organs, providing real-time biomedical data to a central health monitor unit.

This unit tracks the medical condition of the user and triggers secondary modules when it registers the incidence of critical damage through internal or external trauma; these modules are implanted in heart tissue, the lymphatic system and adrenal glands, and utilize micro-electric charges and phased-released chemicals to stimulate the human body's healing reaction.

↳ CARDIOVERTOR DEFIBRILLATOR The Sentinel RX Health System comes fitted as standard with an Implanted Cardiovertor Defibrillator capable of restarting a human heart up to eighty times without requiring a recharge.
↳ ANGIOGENESIS PROTEIN THERAPY The Sentinel Implant package also includes the Angiogenesis Protein Therapy delivery system, providing state-of-the-art biomedical care directly to where it is needed in the body.

» IMPLANTED REBREATHER
The Rebreather augmentation's core components are implanted in the primary bronchi, where the lungs join the trachea. The device is a combination of nanomesh filter and oxygen circulation unit (a compact, closed-circuit rebreather), which recycles and cleanses indrawn breaths before passing them on to the lungs. In addition, chemical exchange reactants injected into the alveoli assist in the process of blood oxygenation, enabling the user to resist exhaustion from extended physical efforts.

Concealed in the chest cavity, this augmentation activates in the presence of airborne toxins such as tear gas or aerosol poisons, rendering them ineffective. It cannot reduce damage from airborne radioactive contaminants or particle energy effects, however. Secondary functionality gives people equipped with the Rebreather augmentation an additional 'reservoir' of oxygen in the bloodstream, allowing them to surpass the normal limits of fatigue associated with sustained sprinting.

↳ CHEMICAL RESISTANCE The implanted Rebreather device acts as an always-on chemical resistance filter without the need for a clumsy mask or oxygen tank.
↳ HYPER-OXYGENATION Experienced Rebreather users can reduce the onset of fatigue from sprinting, allowing them to run faster for longer.

» SARIF SERIES 8 ENERGY CONVERTER
Employing processes similar to those whereby the human digestive system converts organic nutrients from food into electrochemical energy, the Sarif Series 8 Energy Converter further adapts electrochemicals into neuroenhancement-specific potential, first creating discrete capacitors, and then charging those cells with augmentation-dedicated energy.

The Sarif Series 8 Energy Converter gives users the ability to maximize the energy available to any and all of their neuroaugmentations by transforming ordinary food to energy within augmentation-specific cells. With practice, these cells can increase in number and efficiency, ensuring that energy will always be there when needed.

↳ ENERGY LEVEL 3 Mastery of the Energy Converter enables users to rely on a total count of 5 energy cells for later use.
↳ RECHARGE RATE 3 The most experienced Energy Converter users will only need 20 seconds for one cell to recharge fully, with no delay before charge-up begins.

» TYPHOON EXPLOSIVE SYSTEM
The Typhoon is an anti-personnel weapon implanted in a series of subdermal pads along the back of the user's arms, upper legs, and torso; the pads are loaded with a matrix of small (10mm) stainless steel ball bearings above a thin layer of fixed-focus electromagnetic repulsion field generators.

In effect, the Typhoon augmentation turns its user into a human fragmentation grenade, placing him or her at the center of a blast radius that inflicts a ranged sphere of damage on surrounding targets, in all directions, without focus or aim. Every detonation requires the expenditure of one ammo pack and one energy cell.

On activation, the implant releases the ball bearings in an optimal 360° shrapnel shockwave cloud that inflicts severe damage on unarmored targets at close range, and an additional blowback effect on middle-distant targets.

BACK

» ICARUS LANDING SYSTEM
The Icarus Landing System is a discreet augmentation surgically implanted in the user's lower back, slightly above the coccyx at the base of the vertebral column. The device has an accelerative descent sensor built in; in freefall, the unit will automatically activate the patented High-Fall Safeguard System, an EMF decelerator generating a fixed-focus electromagnetic lensing field, projected downward along the plane of the drop. This field pushes against the Earth's magnetosphere and slows the user's descent to a manageable velocity, allowing him to fall from almost any height (within reason).

↳ DESCENT VELOCITY MODULATOR Essentially a safety device to prevent death or serious injury when falling from extreme heights, the Icarus Landing System is an automatically-triggered augmentation that allows users to drop from heights above 10 meters (32 feet) without incurring physical damage. As a side-effect, falling directly on to an enemy combatant will result in a knock-down, knock-out attack, while striking a light object will displace it.

» QUICKSILVER REFLEX BOOSTER
The Quicksilver Reflex Booster is a decentralized augmentation connected to nerve bundles in the legs, to a distributed set of disc implants in the spinal column, and to other elements of the body's vestibular system (which controls balance and agility).

Working in concert, these elements send and receive digital pressure signals to a series of implanted integrated circuits, granting increased agility and corporeal control.

The Quicksilver Reflex Booster is essentially a supercharger for the human nervous system, boosting reflex speed and the firing of nerve clusters throughout the body. The direct effect of this means that the user is capable of reacting far faster than a 'normal' person in a dangerous situation, enabling him or her to move quickly with split focus to engage more than one adversary.

↳ MULTIPLE TAKE-DOWN The Quicksilver Reflex Booster brings lightning-fast reflexes and superb agility to its users immediately, allowing them to engage and take down two discrete adversaries in a simultaneous encounter.

SKIN

» GLASS-SHIELD CLOAKING SYSTEM
The Glass-Shield Cloaking System is composed of a grid of fine induction wires connected to a deep-tissue control implant (typically located in the back or ribcage) which, in turn, is linked to the brain. The matrix can be layered directly beneath the surface of the epidermis or over the plating of cybernetic limbs; when activated, it generates a tuned, fixed-focus electromagnetic field that temporarily adjusts the frequency of EM radiation around the user. The net effect is a 'cloak of invisibility' which appears near-perfect.

When activated, the Glass-Shield Cloaking System augmentation bends the light hitting the user, rendering him practically invisible. The effect will work on any wavelength that is part of the visual spectrum, including laser beams.

↳ LONGEVITY 2 Experienced users can learn to adeptly and efficiently enhance the shield's functionality while expending even less bio-energy, thus significantly extending operational time to 7 seconds per energy cell.

» DERMAL ARMOR
Rhino Dermal Armor is a supple, micro-thin material implanted beneath the epidermis in key areas of the body, as well as over the surface of pre-existing cybernetic limbs. The structure of the plating is a phased composite; the base is a microfiber weave made from carbon nanotubes suspended in a dilatant (or shear-thickening) fluid. When kinetic energy from a physical blow or a weapon discharge strikes the plating, the fluid becomes rigid, deflecting the impact shock. Heat and electromagnetically-conductive elements in the armor matrix serve to dissipate damage from fire-related or energized trauma.

Essentially a technologically-advanced version of implanted body armor, this augmentation is able to reduce inflicted damage effects from blunt trauma, ballistic attacks, cutting, and/or slashing attacks. However, Dermal Armor cannot reduce damage effects from airborne contaminants such as gas, environmental effects (radiation, toxins and poisons), or falling trauma.

↳ DAMAGE REDUCTION 3 Mastering use of the dermal armor's phased composite structure increases the effectiveness of Rhino skin even more, reducing damage taken from attacks by 45%.

LEGS

» CYBERNETIC LEG PROSTHESIS
The Hermes 2027 Cybernetic Leg Prosthesis is an augmented artificial limb built on a framework of advanced polymers and lightweight metals. In place of an organic musculature, these augmentations utilize 'myomers'-bunches of electro-stimulated plastic cables that mimic the actions of muscle tissues, but to a greatly strengthened degree. In combination with tiny motors and shock-absorbing liquid polymer buffers, these cyberlimbs are capable of far exceeding human physical attributes.

The Cybernetic Leg Prosthesis replaces a person's organic limbs with enhanced-function mechanical substitutes. On a basic level, these grant the user the ability to reach greater heights while jumping. Additional functionalities, including enhanced jump range, greater sprint speed, and the ability to move without audible detection, become possible as familiarity with the augmentation increases.

↳ JUMP ENHANCEMENT Once comfortable with using the leg's higher-density muscle bunches in tandem with the shock-absorbing gel matrix found in its knee joints and hip mounts, users can leap even higher than before - up to 3 meters (9 feet) into the air.
↳ SPRINT ENHANCEMENT Learning to maximize the Cybernetic Leg's lighter phased carbide bone frames with its myomer reaction initiators allows people equipped with the prosthesis to reach a maximum sprinting speed of 7.5 meters (24 feet) per second.
↳ SPRINT SILENTLY Even sprinting at full speed will produce no more noise than a gentle breeze once people equipped with the leg prosthesis have mastered the use of its lighter phased carbide bone frames and myomer reaction initiators.
↳ JUMP/LAND SILENTLY The same higher-density myomer muscle bunches and shock-absorbing gel matrix in the knee joints and hip mounts which enable Cybernetic Leg users to jump higher than ever can also permit them to spring up and touch ground again without anyone hearing it occur.